Great leadership is a matter of trust

Trust is everything in business. One trait shared by all good leaders is the ability to garner trust among employees, customers and their peers.

As Paul O’Sullivan, dean and director at DIT College of Business, sponsors of the Most Trusted Leader award for the last six years, puts it: “Leadership is essentially about setting a clear vision and then getting people to buy into it and to work towards its achievement.

“For this to happen, there must be belief in the trustworthiness of the leader, not just in relation to their ability, but also in terms of their honesty, integrity, and level of concern for employee well-being.”

O’Sullivan suggests that once a leader has gained trust, employees do not have to spend time second-guessing their actions and are free to commit fully to their roles.

“Conversely, low trust or distrust can be extremely damaging to organisational performance,” he says.

“One only has to look at the difficulties with managing change in the absence of trust where employees constantly second guess actions and underlying motives and are unwilling to commit fully to the change process.”

Job performance

O’Sullivan points out that research on trust and leadership has grown significantly in recent decades, with studies highlighting its importance in influencing communication and co-operation, risk-taking, discretionary behaviours, work attitudes, commitment and job-performance.

He acknowledges much of the research so far has been conducted in traditional work settings. “Relatively little is known about how leaders build high levels of trust at a distance. This is increasingly important as organisations continue to make greater use of virtual working arrangements.”

O’Sullivan is convinced that academia can play an important role in developing leadership capabilities. “It is incredibly important for business schools to expose students to modules on corporate governance and ethics, to inform them of the consequences of leaders’ actions and to encourage them to conduct business with integrity and to think of the role of business in society.”